Astronomers deliver the sharpest and deepest view yet of the low-frequency radio sky

Astronomers from Leiden University and collaborators have created the sharpest and most sensitive low-frequency radio image of the sky ever made. The image reveals almost 63,000 radio sources, including active galactic nuclei and star-forming galaxies, across a patch of sky about 25 times the area of the full moon. The image is 20 times sharper than the previous most sensitive LOFAR image of this area of sky. The data were collected over 200 hours and amounted to 400 terabytes. The researchers observed ELAIS-N1, a well-studied patch of the northern sky that contains many faint and distant galaxies. The image has a resolution high enough to pick out a coin from about 10 kilometers away. The data have been made publicly available for the astronomical community.

• The image contains 8 billion pixels.
• The data were processed on Spider, a high-performance data-processing platform hosted at SURF in the Netherlands, in just a few months.
• The image is 20 times sharper than the previous most sensitive LOFAR image of this area of sky.

The image reveals active galactic nuclei and star-forming galaxies, and different components and the source of radio emission can be told apart more easily. The image allows astronomers to derive properties such as the distance and mass of each radio source detected in the new image. The image demonstrates the potential of LOFAR2.0, the upgrade of the telescope that ASTRON is currently carrying out together with its European partners. It will make more sensitive and wider images at high resolution possible. The image is expected to remain competitive during the era of the upcoming Square Kilometre Array.

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